The Outsider
by Colin Wilson
published
December 6th 2001
(first published 1956)
by Phoenix Press
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binding
Paperback, 320 pages
isbn
0753814323
(isbn13: 9780753814321)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 179)
Read in January, 2008
The Outsider is great. Much of the book are things that any serious reader will say the very not so serious comment of 'duh' to, and there is the sense of 'preaching to the converted' (although there is no preaching here), but that's ok with me since a good portion of my life has been being submersed in subcultures that preach to the converted believing that their words just might be able to transcend the actual audience to an audience that needs to hear the message (for the record I jus...more
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Read in July, 1977
recommended to erik by:
no onerecommends it for: young persons
Wilson's first book, The Outsider, prefiguring much of his later serious work, was a best-seller, making him a celebrity in his twenties, a status quickly lost and never regained. It is not, in my opinion, one of his best books, but then none of his books are really very good by any ordinary standards. Wilson is no great scholar, no masterful prose stylist. He has made his living as a popularist in scores of sellable books about hot topics like sex, murder, scandal, aliens and the occult. O...more
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Read in June, 2005
Quite often there are books that we read when young that make a great impression onus, that seem to be works of genius, and then we reread them years later and we’re bitterly disappointed. This was my experience with Colin Wilson’s The Outsider. The book was a sensation when first published back in 1956 and made its 24-year-old author something of a literary celebrity. There are parts of it that I still like. I still like the way he defines the outsider, as someone who is haunted ...more
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Read in January, 1996
As someone who has always felt like they were on the outside looking in, this book has been a comfort. Colin Wilson deftly discusses outsiders in art and literature (Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Poe, Dostoyevsky, Kafka and others) and illustrates what The Outsider has to cope with, what he sees and what he offers while struggling in an ever baffling world, where searching for a place seems like an endless, futile journey.
The concept of The Outsider may seem grim on the surface, but Wilson digs deep...more
The concept of The Outsider may seem grim on the surface, but Wilson digs deep...more
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this is part of a series of books i collected in order to better understand my more perplexing male friends. wilson is an autodidact, so i relish what he proclaims. for the life of me, however, I can't remember any of it... and the outsider is yet another book i have not finished. besides, i am presently past wishing to understand the motives of the more aggravating male friends, who fit the mold. i did find it interesting that wilson follows his theories to its most extreme logical conclusi...more
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Read in March, 2008
Starts out with all guns blazing... a wonderfully energetic and boundlessly confident romp through the existential hero's domain. Wilson takes on a big-balled thematic synthesis of the major works of Dostoevsky, Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, T.S. Eliot and others, with a frenetic style reminiscent of a supremely confident caffeine-fueled college philosophy major. I enjoyed Wilson's exuberance in the beginning as he introduced the concept of the outsider, but I felt that the book gradually s...more
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Read in June, 2008
Brilliiant. As he admits himself, the british media hijacked him, to declare him among the ranks of Sartre etc...(1950's)...in desperation for having some intelligence of note. Anyways...it is a great look at the outsiders...religious, artistic, literary, in dance, and philosophy. I have my own understanding of these people...but he still does a very rigourous study. It covers alot of existentialism, and as an overview of existentialist thought, it is a good book...but it isn't only that. Worth ...more
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Read in April, 1980
i read this book man years ago and remember viidly how he state that in the summer he would camp out under the stars, the cycle to the then...reading room at the british-museam to continoiue his work... yes great book
althought others i don't think would like to copy the actions now.. adverse weather.. reading rooms now shifted to near kings-cross in a vast new building.. were thwe evan have a cafe...i like most of his othere books he goes in to so much detail i makes the reader know tha...more
althought others i don't think would like to copy the actions now.. adverse weather.. reading rooms now shifted to near kings-cross in a vast new building.. were thwe evan have a cafe...i like most of his othere books he goes in to so much detail i makes the reader know tha...more
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This book is one of the most fascinating books EVER! Colin Wilson is an amazing writer and he tackles one of the strangest and most romantic ideas: that of the outsider. The man or woman who exists outside of society; the artist, scholar, writer, dancer, actor or philosopher who can't ever quite find themselves within. He explores the lives of famous outsiders, literary outsiders and the psychological and philosophical cause and effect of them. It's like a self-help book for those of us who fit ...more
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Read in January, 1997
Wilson's idea of the Outsider stems from a humanistic perspective that a certain type of man (and he focuses only on men) tries to see beyond the everyday experience of life. Using the works of Sartre, Camus, Hesse, and other late 19th and early 20th century authors, Wilson relates literature to philosophical conclusion.
I read this book in high school and it is one of the books that I can say changed my life (if only in so far as it caused me to read the books by all the people mentioned in ...more
I read this book in high school and it is one of the books that I can say changed my life (if only in so far as it caused me to read the books by all the people mentioned in ...more
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Read in January, 2005
A great book with a whole lot of information on other great books and other great Authors...it takes a specific character found in other books (someone who does not fit in with socioty standards, but must ultimatly co-exist within socioty)..an excellent read!!!
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This is one of those books that makes you want to read a bunch of other books. Mostly Dostoevsky. It was a romp in the waters of the outsider in literature as seen through the works of DH Lawrence, aforementioned Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Sartre, and others.
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Read in January, 2004
Analyzes the role of "the outsider" in history and literature and draws upon several areas of philosophy. I was elated that many pages were dedicated to analyzing the outsider as portrayed by Hermann Hesse, since Hesse is one of my favorite authors.
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Read in January, 1990
recommends it for:
college students
Colin Wilson explains why men of "genius" suffer angst. As such there are interesting portraits of Dostoyevsky, T.E Lawrence, Van Gogh, etc, etc.
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Wilson's classic study of people who fall outside the norm somehow. Propelled him to short lived mainstream success, contains the seeds of his post-existentialist philsophy, faculty X, peak experiences and all.
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This book is great if you have read most of the books that the author discusses. However, if you have not, it is still a good study of the outsider in literature and why such a character has come to exist.
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Read in January, 1965
recommends it for:
literate adults
A fascinating and insightful account of various artists who stood outside society and convention. Probably of value to anyone, artist or not, who feels like an outsider in the contemporary world.
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This book meant so much to me as a teenager growing up in the 1960's. I actually used it almost as a bibliography - reading many of and about many of the people mentioned in the book. Doug
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Read in December, 1998
A great study of real-life and fictional outsiders. Subjects include: Hemingway, Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and Dostoevsky.
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A fantastic review/history of existentialism up to the 1950s or so.
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